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Watermeads Housing Estate was built in 1974-7 by Merton Borough Architects Department, one of a series of low-rise housing schemes that incorporated landscaping. It is on part of the former site of Mitcham Grove, a substantial house and estate that had existed here since medieval times, with eminent owners from Elizabethan times. After the death of the last resident, banker Henry Hoare, the house was demolished in 1846. A fine cedar tree remains from the former grounds. In the C20th the site housed film studios, then Hovis & Co. who had sports facilities here, before motor vehicle manufacturers Locomotors Ltd acquired the land, remaining here until 1973.
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This cemetery founded in 1915 for Ashkenazi Jews, is the only Jewish burial ground in South London. Situated on Rowan Road, Merton it was established by the Polish burial society Hesed V'Emet (or Chesed V'Ameth) (meaning 'Kindness and Truth') to provide a resting place for Jewish families living in Soho primarily associated with the West End Great Synagogue. The cemetery includes a small prayer hall (mortuary chapel) built in 1932. The cemetery has tightly packed pathways and rows of tombstones, reflecting the traditional Jewish cemetery layout. There are also Commonwealth War Graves for Jewish service personnel from WWII.
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Wimbledon School was founded as an Anglican Military Academy in 1860 by Revd John Brackenbury who purchased Tree and Boggy Fields on the crest of Edge Hill. Formal gardens were laid out in front of the main school building, exotic trees and shrubs were planted in the grounds and Boggy Field became a kitchen garden. The gardens were opened to the public once a week and much admired. The school closed in 1884 and put up for sale in 1892. Part of the site, comprising the old buildings and land below them were purchased by the Jesuits who opened Wimbledon College as a boys' school here in 1893.
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Wimbledon Common is managed by Wimbledon and Putney Common Conservators. Wimbledon Common consists mainly of a plateau of acidic grassland, the most notable area being The Plain. The earliest history of the commons dates back to the Palaeolithic Age. In 1864 the lord of the manor, Earl Spencer, proposed enclosing 700 acres to form a park for a new mansion near the windmill and selling 300 acres for building. He was prevented by the Select Committee enquiry of 1865 that led to the Metropolitan Commons Act 1866. Eventually an Act of Parliament in 1871 secured the future of Wimbledon Common, entrusting it to a Board of Conservators with annual compensation paid to Earl Spencer. Earl Spencer's annual compensation was bought out in 1968 following a decade of fund raising. The area is registered as Common Land and managed under Section 193 of Law of Property Act 1925.
Wimbledon Common has a range of habitats from wet and dry heath, grassland, woodland and 5 ponds, as well as the Beverley Brook that runs through the site. The Common has changed little since the 1871 Act although woodland is now extensive on the west and north, Shadwell Wood in the south reduced by 1 of the 2 golf courses here, formed in 1908.
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* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens
The municipal park is a remnant of the C18th landscape park that Capability Brown laid out for Earl Spencer of Wimbledon House, an estate that dated from the C16th, once owned by Queen Henrietta Maria and later by the Duchess of Marlborough. The estate was broken up from the late C19th, and in 1914 Wimbledon Borough Council purchased the northern part of the parkland and opened Wimbledon Park as a public park. The lake is a survivor from the earlier landscape and is one of the largest in London. Land to the west was purchased for Wimbledon Golf Course and in c.1930 the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) was established to the west. The Golf Club closed in 2023 after the land was acquired by AELTC in 2018.
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In 1914, Gertrude Jekyll received her third commission for gardens in the Wimbledon area. Bowerbank was to be on a 1½ acre plot in Marryat Road on the former Wimbledon House estate. Her designs are very detailed with plants carefully selected both for a double entrance frontage and a large rectangular back garden sloping down towards a hedge. Beyond was an ornamental lake. However, no house by the name of Bowerbank has ever been identified and it is unknown whether the designs were ever implemented. It is now clear that Bowerbank was eventually built under the name Windyridge but may have been delayed by WWI. The lower part of the garden no longer exists but the house, upper garden and frontage all remain.